


The Darkness holds no Solace

by snowbryneich



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Sibling Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-16 05:49:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowbryneich/pseuds/snowbryneich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robb & Sansa sibling fic- "Or maybe he'll bring me yours." - Robb does present Sansa with Joffrey's head after he wins the war</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Darkness holds no Solace

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Got-Exchange - Or maybe he'll bring me yours. - Robb actually succeeds, defeats Joffrey, and Sansa is reunites with what is left of her family. But the war changed them all, and rebuilding their home is not as easy as they thought it would be. (Lots of PTSS from everyone, basically.) Doesn't have to end with ~happily ever after~, but please don't leave me with a completely hopeless ending. Can be as ship-y or sibling-y as you want.
> 
> Note – this is AU in which Robb neither sends off Theon as a messenger nor marries Jeyne making success slightly more likely for him.

When Grey Wind woke Robb in the night it was only ever for one thing. And though it would never be difficult for the direwolf to dislodge him from a bed or a deep sleep - it rarely took that much effort. Robb did not think he had slept easily for a single night in King's Landing - nor did he want to.

But he knew for certain he slept more than Sansa. His sister had seemed a different girl entirely since he had taken King's Landing. Since Winterfell in truth when he'd seen her last, she'd always been a pretty girl, his little sister but now she was undoubtably a woman grown. And a practical stranger. She was near his height now and her manner was cool, distant and southron through and through. Robb had wanted to apologise for how long it had taken to come to her but he hadn't been able to find the words – not when he had nothing from her but courtesies and the lies that the Lannisters had treated her kindly.

It wasn't the first time of course that he'd been frustrated by Sansa's courtesies – when they were younger it had been irritating that his little sister had always managed better manners. It had been boring that she would not join in anything that involved the slightest chance she might dirty her gown. Right now, Robb would give much to think the reason why his sister would barely look him in the eye was because he'd ruined a bit of embroidery.

No – Sansa's courtesies were different now, it was not pride nor airs and graces that held her stiff and correct now. It was fear. His sister did not trust him. He had come too late. In all his time in King's Landing he had done one thing that comforted Sansa when he had taken Joffrey Baratheon's head off. He knew and understoof why Sansa wanted him dead but he had not understood that she had wanted to witness it. Not until those who survived the Lannister regime had talked – they had been glad to paint Joffrey another Aerys and the tales of how Sansa had been treated made Robb wish he could execute him all over again.

He found her where he always did - standing on traitor's walk staring up at Joffrey's head, looking wan and thin in the moonlight. It did not resemble the false prince - it never had - not once they'd dipped it in tar and less so now time and the birds had worried it.

It perturbed Robb more than he could say that something so morbid gave Sansa comfort. He would have understood if Arya had wanted someone's head as a trophy. Not even the truth of what Joffrey had done to her made this make sense to him.

He nudged Grey Wind forward as he made to join her - Sansa startled easily yet she was always pleased to see Grey Wind. Robb was not so sure she felt the same about him. But just before the wolf padded silently up to her – he heard the murmur of her voice though he could not make out the words.

“Who were you talking to,” he asked as Sansa petted Grey Wind like he was a puppy – her own wolf had been no more than a pup when she'd lost her. Sansa blinked at him as if even the wolf had not been enough to announce his presence. 

“I was not speaking to anyone, Your Grace,” she swept him a proper curtsey. The courtesy no longer stung as it once had and he no longer corrected her use of his title even when alone. Anything she could percieve as a rebuke made her flinch which made him want to hit something.

“You look cold,” he tried instead offering her his cloak - there was a chill in the autumn air and Sansa was dressed in southron silks.

“Yes,” she agreed quietly. “It won't be autumn much longer.” She was looking at him expectantly and later would be ashamed at how long her prompt took.

“Well,” he said, sliding the cloak over her shoulders – trying to ignore the slight tremble as he did. “Winter is coming.” 

Her answering smile was the first true smile of hers he'd seen since their reunion.

\- - -

Robb did not like holding court from the Iron Throne but he did it. The realm was held together by a fragile peace and Lord Baelish has informed him that holding to custom rather than acting a northern savage was one of the few threads that would hold it together. Robb does not like the man – but he knows he is right.

Robb did not want to be King of all seven Kingdoms but he is now by right of conquest. And if Stannis Baratheon had not been reviled as a kinslayer and the Tyrells hadn't chosen to throw their lot in with him instead of the Lannisters things could be very different. Robb knows this. He does not have to like it.

Nor has he bowed to every custom King's Landing has to offer. He has refused to name a Kingsguard – he has Grey Wind and those who served him in battle as his guards. All of them are Northern – and few of them are knights. He would not have them swear away their lives. He has not replaced his crown of bronze and iron with one of gold and jewels. But in the North as in the South a ruler must listen to his bannermen and smallfolk alike. So Robb does.

He is generous with those who have lost their livelihood and harvests to the war – the Iron Throne is less in debt now because Robb has no intention of paying House Lannister anything. The Iron Bank he will consider – after the Winter.

He forgives (at least publicly) those who bend the knee and welcomes them in the King's peace.

He tolerates Margaery Tyrell's smiles and ignores her grandmother's hints that the Frey betrothal could be put aside.

He does not use a head's man and executes those that must die himself.

Robb does all this and wonders what his father would have thought. His lord father had never wanted to be Hand of the King – he would not have wanted this for Robb. But most days he thinks his father would be proud of his handling of the situation.

Apart from the days when Sansa comes to court. Robb finds himself wishing she wouldn't. No-one else would see it he's sure, she stands apart and chirps politely along with the gossip. She makes small talk and her face is a mask. She pays careful attention when he announces his judgements and never gives the slightest sign she disagrees with any of them. It would not be her place nor political to do so. Yet Robb is sure she hates every minute of it – she comes because her occasional presence is expected as the King's sister. 

Sansa has always done what was expected of her.

Robb wonders if she hates him because he is King.

\- - -

When Sansa is not at court or in her rooms or wandering traitor's walk at night there is only one other place she can be found. The godswood does not have a weirwood but it does have a heart tree and Sansa prays to it fervently and often. Robb knows of course why she refused to set foot in the Baylor's great Sept but it had surprised him how determinedly she had turned her face from the Seven.

Robb had never followed his mother's gods but this becomes to him just one more thing Joffrey took away from Sansa, so when he joins her for silent prayer he feels another pang of shame. He wonders what she prays for. He would never ask but sometimes when they are knelt together before the heart tree he can reach for her hand and hold it and she won't flinch. That's worth his silence.

\- - -

When it became clear that Robb meant to hold to his Frey betrothal, attention at court turned to Sansa. This is yet another thing Robb will hold against Lord frey – he does mean to honour his betrothal – he gave his word. He doesn't want to though and so he ignores Lord Frey's ravens regularly. (He said he'd marry one of them – he did not say when.)

At first it was Lord Baelish, who generally was first with every hint of gossip who told Robb the Tyrells wanted a Princess if they could not have a King and then suggested perhaps an older man might be better able to handle Sansa's moods. Two days later Loras Tyrell presented Sansa with a golden rose – Robb wonders if the romantic jesture would have more of an effect if his grandmother had not had to near frog march the miserable looking young knight over to Sansa for the exchange. He suspects not.

Next his uncle Edmure casually suggests those heirs of Riverlords he would trust enough to be gentle with Sansa. It is an approach Robb appreciates more than subtle reminders from his council that he needs the Tyrell's or a drunken speech from Theon that he'd be a chaste husband for Sansa if Robb didn't care if he was unfaithful. That was meant well and Robb had been in his cups too so the ensuing scuffle had not been too violent and Theon had been disuaded from any further endeavours in that direction.

It is Brynden's word that give him pause in the end. He has named his uncle his Hand and though Sansa has had little to do with the Tully uncles she barely knows, Brynden says she reminds him of their mother. “Catelyn was grieved when your uncle died,” Brynden reminds him. “I know it is not the same but she still wanted a family. A husband to keep her safe and a castle of her own to run and children in her future. Sansa might want the same at some point.”

Robb is sure Sansa never wanted anything else in her whole life. At least before _Joffrey._ But he has no idea what she wants now. He wishes (not for the first time) that he had not sent his mother back to Winterfell to see to Bran and Rickon. Then puts off the whole scenario by responding to the next Tyrell request for a match between their houses by offering them Edmure for Margaery.

\- - -

Robb had felt sure that the wedding plans would be enough reason to broach the subject with Sansa but it happens entirely differently. Grey Wind does not wake him the night that Sansa crashes into his room in a panic and Robb gives the wolf a brief look of betrayal before he goes to his hysterical sister.

“Where is it?” she demands, her hair is mussed and her eyes wild with panic and she cannot seem to catch her breath, her voice high and screechy. “Where is it Robb. I need to tell him.” Her speech is garbled by sobs then and Robb pulls her close trying to calm her. It is only after several unsure moments of hesitant comforting, Robb realises she is talking about Joffrey's head.

They had made a tentative peace in the westerlands with Ser Kevan Lannister – Robb had not confirmed him as Lord of Casterly Rock yet – not until he bends the knee in person. But he had sent back the bones of those who had died when he took King's Landing. Joffrey had been sent back with the bones of his mother and brother, dead by Cersei's own hand and poison. He had not told Sansa this – hoping her obsession with her tormentor's remains had faded on it's own.

“Sansa, he's gone.” Robb told her, hoping not to inspire further panic. “I sent his bones back to the Rock. There is nothing of Joffrey left here.”

“I thought I dreamt it,” Sansa told him shakily not lifting her head from his chest. “When it was gone. I thought morning would come and he'd be there.”

“No,” Robb said unprepared for this, for all of it but determined not to fail Sansa again. “It wasn't a dream. I killed him. He's dead. He can never touch you again.” She is quiet after that and still shaky. It is half curiosity half concern that makes him ask. “What did you want to tell him.” If she wishes to rail and curse against Joffrey, Robb will certainly listen. 

She is quiet for a long time after he asks the question and he does not push but eventually she does speak.

“I liked to tell him that I was right.” she said quietly. “And he was wrong.” She takes a deep shakey breath. “He promised me your head for a wedding gift, he said I would have to kiss it. And I told him that you would bring me his.” Robb is both enraged but not surprised that Joffrey would speak to her so and he is surprised at Sansa's answer to the threat.

“I did bring you his head,” he said as if this is much of an offering. “You just couldn't keep it. We need the peace.”

Sansa nods accepting this, her face pensive. “There are worse things to give up for peace,” she said quietly, glancing at him uncertainly. Robb does not know what she means and is perhaps afraid to ask, but she stays with him that night and in the morning as they break their fast he earns another smile by offering that she is welcome to tell him she was right at any time day or night. Surely him being alive is as much proof of her victory as Joffrey being dead.

\- - -

Robb comes to understand Sansa's remark two days later when he finds her walking in the godswood with Loras Tyrell. Robb is hard pressed to say who looks more unhappy about the endeavour – he half expects to find the Queen of Thorns hobbling along behind them insisting on a match between a Stark and Tyrell. It is easy to convince Loras to yield his place beside Sansa to him and Robb watches Sansa watch him leave resignation on her face.

“You do not have to give up anything to the peace,” he told her then. (His councillors will call this folly.) “And you certainly don't have to marry Loras Tyrell.”

Sansa looks uncertain and disbelieving. “Who then?” she asks her fear evident in a shake she manages to hide rather quickly. “I have to marry someone. They won't all accept no for an answer forever. If I'm not promised to someone then I'm fair game to half the court.”

It's a succinct summary of how court life is viewed. Robb wonders if she learned this under the Lannisters or if someone has told her this. Anyone of his small council could be complicit as they all think this way. “You are not fair game,” he told her. “ You are a wolf. We're a pack. You never have to leave if you don't want to.” Sansa went quiet and her gaze found the heart tree. For a moment Robb couldn't help hating that she had not believed him, what else could he say. But she reached for his hand this time and they sat in silence for a long time and when he looked at her she seemed relieved.

Eventually she spoke quietly. “When the colds winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.” Robb knew who she was thinking of, saying that. He could only nod sure despite what had happened in King's Landing that if his father was alive he could have made Sansa feel safe.

“And If I married,” she added thoughtfully. “You would be a lone wolf.” The thought made Robb realise just how much more he hated King's Landing but he said nothing, letting Sansa follow her own train of thought. “So I suppose I shall have to stay,” she finished looking at him for reassurence.

“Yes,” he said seizing the opening. Sansa had always been proper and poised and ladylike. She had always done what she should. “I should have to say it was very much your duty.” Relief blossoms on her face, it is nearly as good as a smile because she seems to believe him. He's given her a reason. Sansa will do her duty, Robb knows that. And he will do his as King and brother both and _protect_ her.


End file.
